


i think it means don't leave me here alone

by overcomewithlongingfora_girl



Category: Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Abuse, Angst, Beating, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, Friendship, Humiliation, Just Me Whumping the Shit Out of Wylan, Kidnapping, M/M, Physical Abuse, Psychological Torture, Rescue, Rescue Missions, Sensory Deprivation, Starvation, Torture, Whump, i mean hopefully
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-07
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:55:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25773193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/overcomewithlongingfora_girl/pseuds/overcomewithlongingfora_girl
Summary: *Set after Crooked Kingdom*Kaz is ruling the Barrel with an iron fist, Inej is terrorizing sailors on the high seas, and Jesper has finally decided to visit Ravka. As for Nina, well...no one's heard from Nina yet.Wylan spends his days learning his father's business, painting with his mother, and waiting for Jesper to get back. Or at least, that's how he spends his days until he's kidnapped off the streets of the Financial District.It's up to Kaz to rally the troops and rescue their missing companion, and up to Wylan to stay alive until they come for him. That's all easier said than done - and besides, even if both boys succeed, what's going to be left of Wylan to rescue?
Relationships: Jesper Fahey/Wylan Van Eck, Kaz Brekker/Inej Ghafa
Comments: 108
Kudos: 149





	1. Wylan

Later, Wylan would look back and admit it was his own fault for dismissing most of the guards. He’d thought after his time running with Kaz Brekker, the toughest thing in Ketterdam, he’d be able to look after himself.

What a stupid idea that had been.

Not helpful right now. Not helpful. Maybe true, but not helpful. Wylan tries to take a few deep breaths – not an easy thing to do with a gag crammed in his mouth. He needs to…he needs to figure out where he is. Who has taken him. What they want. He’s blindfolded, so he can’t exactly peek around the room but he can just…he can just think. He just needs to think.

So. Another deep breath, and Wylan focuses on what he knows. He had been…he had been returning from the market. The streets were finally open again, and people were roaming down them tentatively, still looking half stunned by how they’d dodged fate when the plague sirens rang false. Everyone had seemed in a cautious good mood, and Wylan was walking the streets he knew so well, bag of peaches in hand because they were finally starting to be in season, and he had a feeling that his mother would love them.

And then…nothing. Blackness. An impenetrable wall in his memory that resisted all attempts to push past it. It could’ve been a chemical, or a hard blow to the head, but somehow, someone had knocked him out. The ringing ache in his head doesn’t really help Wylan figure out which scenario is more likely, but it does make him long for a long drink of water to soothe the pain.

One thing is clear. Whoever was responsible had taken time on this job. Two weeks ago, Inej had left the harbor, taking _The Wraith_ out on her maiden voyage. She and Kaz had wreaked havoc on the Ketterdam slavers for over a year, and now she was taking to the seas. She didn’t know how long she’d be gone. The strain on Kaz’s face was visible as he waved her off the docks. It was no wonder he’d all but buried himself in work.

Then there was Jesper – he’d cast off last week for Novyi Zem. It was only a stop on a longer journey, else he would’ve brought Wylan along, that much he promised. After his stay with his father, though, Jesper planned to go on to Ravka. Just to see, he’d clarified, with uncertainty in his face. Just to maybe, maybe learn some things.

Wylan had blessed the journey with a kiss and a smile, even though it hurt to see Jesper go. They’d been all but inseparable since the whole affair with Kuwei, and then, then…

Then, Wylan had realized with a start, he was alone.

Inej at sea, Jesper in Novyi Zem, and Nina…well, none of them had yet seen Nina. Jesper hoped to find her in Ravka, but for all they knew, she was still in Fjerda, looking for some kind of closure. Kaz remained in Ketterdam, but, well.

It was just that Kaz and Wylan had never quite gotten along. They were never really alone together, and when they were…Wylan just sort of tripped right into this little brother dynamic, where he was always a few steps behind, always naïve, always hesitant to take whatever brutal steps needed to be taken. Sure, he’d been a good little foot soldier when Kaz needed him, but the fact remained that Wylan was more of a burden than a boon. He was never more useful than when he was a bargaining chip. Wylan imagined the two of them sitting across from each other at the van Eck’s mahogany table and couldn’t help wincing at the image. What in the _world_ would they talk about?

So Kaz stayed in the Barrel, captaining the Dregs with an efficient, ruthless hand, and Wylan went about learning the ins and outs of his father’s business. He got to know all the maids by name, heard stories about the cook’s grandchildren, and tried to help his mother remember her favorite flowers in their garden. It was hard work, trying to keep up with all the accounts, the markets, and the Merchant Council, but Wylan was satisfied at the end of the day. It was enough. It was more than enough. For the first time in his life, he was starting to feel sure of himself. Even though he was already growing impatient for Jesper’s return, he couldn’t help but feel happy.

And then he had let his guard down. And he’d been fucking kidnapped. The reality of where he is hits him all over again, and he resists the urge to panic even as his heart goes leaping against the walls of his chest. Just keep breathing. Just keep breathing.

So, his eyes are shrouded in black and he can’t see a damn thing. His mouth is stuffed with fabric that tastes faintly of river water. He’s strapped to a chair. He was knocked out in an alley on his way from the night fruit market to the van Eck home. This is what he has to work with. It’s a start.

Whoever took him must have looked at home in the high-class streets Wylan roamed. Someone with the money and know-how to pass as a merchant, or at least someone in a merchant’s employ. They’d have to be strong, or working in a team, to carry his unconscious body. It was likely…Wylan’s breathing picks up, and he has to remind himself to stay calm.

The reality is that it was likely a targeted hit. It would be too lucky to just _happen_ upon him only a week after Jesper had left, when Inej was gone and Kaz was no longer visiting. It was one of Kaz’s rules to always assume the worst-case scenario, and that’s exactly what Wylan was doing. Worst case scenario is that someone rich and powerful has it out for him, specifically. Okay. Now who?

Turning it over in his head, Wylan can’t help wincing. The list isn’t exactly a short one. He’s publicly aligned himself with the rest of the group, even just incidentally. He’s known to be sympathetic to the Grisha cause, which certainly makes him unpopular in some circles. The downfall of his father brought a few other players down as well, and they’re not to be discounted. He’s in charge of an incredibly successful shipping empire, and young enough that there are certainly enemies who believe he doesn’t pose a threat.

And there’s the small matter of his very public anti-slavery stance, which he has made clear on more than one occasion, in tacit support of Inej and Kaz’s little acts of sabotage around the city.

In short, there’s more than enough cause to kidnap Wylan van Eck. Not least of which is the simple fact that he’s a rich kid who dismissed most of his guards because he got cocky. Wylan’s cheeks burn as he thinks about it. Independent enough to protect himself. Big words for a guy who can’t even write his name.

And that’s hardly relevant now, but in times of stress, his father’s voice still echoes in his head.

Restless, Wylan flexes his fingers, hoping to feel some give in the rope that binds his wrists. Nothing. He’s trussed securely in place at the ankles and wrists, to a chair that doesn’t feel like it’s going anywhere anytime soon. He can’t see or yell for help, and his ears offer him nothing useful. Somewhere water is dripping. There’s the faint sound of waves lapping against wood.

That’s – that’s something! Wylan perks up, straining to hear more. He must be near the harbor. Maybe, if he can hear some of the foot traffic outside…

But there’s nothing. Just water dripping, and waves hitting. Sinking back into the chair, Wylan tries to relax his jaw and groans at the protest from the stretched muscles in his throat. He tugs again at the rope around his wrists but it doesn’t give, nor do the binds around his ankles. So…so…

So he’s trapped. That’s okay. He just needs to stay calm and _think._ What would Jesper do, Nina, Kaz, M…Wylan’s mind flinches from the name but he forces himself to remember. What would Matthias do? What had Inej _actually_ done when Wylan’s father held her captive for a week?

Inej had starved herself to wiggle out of her bonds, and then had squeezed through the vents, and then had been, well, rescued by Kaz. If Jesper was here, he’d…he’d probably use his rudimentary Fabrikator powers to cut through the rope or bend the chair around him or something. Matthias would be strong enough to just rip through anything that tried to hold him. Nina could flirt her way out. And Kaz, hell, Kaz would never be in here to begin with.

That hadn’t exactly been helpful.

Eventually, Wylan has to admit that running things through his head over and over and over isn’t getting him anywhere. All he can really do is wait.

It’s just that it’s hard to stay patient and calm when he’s been kidnapped, tied to a chair, and blindfolded. His head keeps running away with him. What does his captor want? What will they do to get it from him? How good are they – can Wylan possibly escape?

And, insistent in the back of his mind, a voice he has to try way too hard to ignore – is anybody going to try to find him?

_

When his captor finally reveals themselves, with a cough from the corner, Wylan can’t help the squeak that bursts from his lips. His cheeks go red, and he hopes fervently that it’s dark enough, wherever he is, that the blush can’t be seen. He’d thought he was alone. He’d been sitting there, blind and mute and helpless, for what felt like hours, and apparently someone had been with him, silent and watching in the darkness. If Wylan were thinking more clearly, he’d see it for the intimidation tactic that it is, but it’s hard to think clearly when you’re gagged and bound and blindfolded.

Besides, it doesn’t matter if it’s a calculated intimidation tactic, the bottom line is that it’s _working._

The voice that speaks to him is deep and rumbling. “I would like to apologize for your discomfort, young sir.”

Of all the things he’d been anticipating, that was not one of them. Wylan held himself as perfectly still as he could, waiting.

“My sincerest wish is that our acquaintance is a short and painless one. This can be assured if you’ll only cooperate.”

The words are flowery, fancy, and delivered with utmost, deadpan calm. Something about it makes Wylan’s skin crawl. The situation is unnerving enough without the eerie way his captor is talking. It’s even worse when the quiet stretches on and the voice remains silent. Wylan wonders if they’ve just left. Maybe that’s all he gets for now.

At least the little speech offers clues. Whoever it is has a mild accent, perhaps from the Southern Colonies. The voice is low enough that it likely comes from a man, an adult man, at that. He must be educated, to talk the way he does, yet at the same time the ability to go undetected in a near-silent room points more toward the criminal element. Wylan’s brow furrows as he turns the contradiction over in his head. 

By the time the man speaks again, Wylan has utterly forgotten him. “I’ll leave you be, for the time being,” the man says, in his ringing voice, and Wylan jolts so hard his skin stings where it pulls against the restraints.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. If he were on his guard, if he were better – the others _never_ would’ve relaxed like that. Careless. Stupid. He’s lost his breath, is panting a little into the gag.

“There’s no need to be alarmed.” The voice comes from right behind him, and even behind the blindfold, Wylan squeezes his eyes shut tight in an attempt to calm his racing heart. “I do not want to hurt you.”

The end of the sentence remains unspoken. _But I will if I have to._

_

The next day, it’s a woman. Once more, the kidnapper chooses to scare the shit out of him by not speaking right away, by seeming to suddenly appear out of nowhere. It’s a woman’s purr that startles him this time, a voice that rings Ketterdam true with every syllable. “Wylan van Eck?” She rolls the name around in her mouth like she’s enjoying this, and Wylan can’t help gulping. So they know who he is.

And there’s at least two of them.

“You must be thirsty, boy.” None of the former fanciness, none of the _young sir_ nonsense. This woman is definitely of the Barrel. So what is she doing working with the educated foreigner from yesterday?

“Hey. Boy. You want a drink, or what?”

Brought back to himself, Wylan nods eagerly in the darkness, mouth still crammed with cotton. He hasn’t had anything to drink in what _must_ have been over a day, and his mouth is dry as a desert. He expects to feel her fingers loosening the knot behind his head, but instead there’s a cup pressed against his lips, which are still spread wide by the gag, and his snickering captor pours the water directly into the gag.

Much of the liquid is soaked up by the gag in Wylan’s mouth, but some spills down his front, and the rest trickles through the gag and directly down the back of his throat, making him choke and cough as best he can with a mouth full to bursting of wet cloth. Distantly, as his chest heaves and his throat works and he bends over, hacking, he can hear the woman laughing.

Eventually his body gives up on the pointless task of trying to expel the gag, which is tied far too tightly, and Wylan can sit up again, gasping for air. He’s still thirsty, but at least now he can bite down and squeeze water from the gag. He files that information away for later and tries to sit up straight, regain some semblance of dignity.

But the woman is gone.

_

It’s hard to tell how much time is passing. It feels like weeks, but Wylan knows realistically it’s only days, and sometimes only hours. He hears the voices of Ravkans, Fjerdans, men and woman and people who could be either. They speak in riddles, or plainly, or not at all – only alerting him to their presence by pouring water through the gag. Some of them whisper. One of them shouts. Wylan’s head spins, trying to keep track of them all. He needs to know who he’s dealing with but he doesn’t recognize a single voice, and there are just so _many._

And he’s hungry. He’s so, _so_ fucking hungry.

Before too long he feels the urge to piss building in his gut, and the low horror rises in him as he realizes there’s no point in holding it. They haven’t untied or ungagged him a single time, and he doesn’t know when the next visit will be, and still he clenches every muscle in his body as he fights not to soil himself.

It doesn’t matter. Hours pass and he pisses himself and then sits in it, face burning, skin stinging where his clothes are damp against him. The smell of piss hangs heavy in the air, and he’s almost grateful they aren’t feeding him, mind balking from that particular horror. It’s dry on his skin before the next visitor arrives, but the shame hasn’t left his head. He’s _pathetic._ The indignity, the helplessness – he’s pathetic.

Eventually, the woman returns, the Ketterdam one, from the second day, and she laughs when she hears his stomach grumble. “Aw, is the poor little merch hungry?”

Wylan wants to glare, wants to snap at her, wants to even just grit his teeth. But he’s tied up and helpless, jaws pried open by the knot of fabric, and all he can do is grunt through the gag.

It doesn’t sound like much.

What he really wants is for the man from the first day to come back. He seemed like the brains of the operation. He’d been the first one to speak to Wylan, after all, and he had sounded so educated, and…and…he’d said he didn’t want to hurt him.

If Wylan’s honest with himself, he’s known for a long time that that’s not true.


	2. Kaz

It takes nine days for Kaz to realize Wylan’s missing. Nine days. Nine days, which is…well, it’s a long fucking time for someone to be missing and unremarked on. There are plenty of excuses there for the taking. Jesper and Inej are out of town, and Kaz doesn’t really visit Wylan without them. He’s been busy with the Dregs. He’s not exactly welcome in the Financial District or even its residential side streets. Besides, he and the mercher don’t have much to talk about these days.

Then Inej’s next letter comes in, carried by a freedman looking for his family in Kerch, and the softhearted Wraith spares a few words for Wylan. She insists Kaz go to the mansion to read to Wylan. He rolls his eyes at her scrawled commands, but in truth, the bastard of the Barrel doesn’t truly mind being ordered around as long as it’s Inej Ghafa doing the ordering. Besides, he has a few ideas he wants to go over with Wylan. There are bombers who do more destructive work than the high-minded merch, but Kaz has yet to meet someone who is as precise.

As he moves through the streets, _his_ streets, Kaz keeps his eye trained ahead and his gait casual. To any casual observer, he looks like a confident young man. To a potential attacker, he looks like a careless teenager with a bad leg. To someone in the know, he looks like Kaz Brekker, Dirtyhands, leader of the Dregs, afraid of nothing. All of these judgments are accurate, to some degree, but the last is the most accurate of all.

Without Inej around, he’s a little more careful, a little less well-informed. Still, if a man can’t walk down a street that he purports to own, he might as well be dead in Ketterdam. On the day that Kaz goes to see Wylan, it’s early evening, just changing to dusk, and he walks down the middle of the road, head held high, cane swinging, and his cool dark eyes dare any passerby to challenge him.

Unsurprisingly, he reaches the van Eck mansion with no such challenges. For a moment he plays with the idea of sneaking in somewhere and scaring the shit out of Wylan, but then he just raises the head of his cane to the door and uses it to rap sharply, six times. It’s a little signal they’ve all grown accustomed to, though to an outsider it does look like an unusual amount of banging. Usually Kaz isn’t one for stupid little signals like this, but he’ll indulge tonight.

When the face that greets him doesn’t bear Wylan’s familiar eager grin, Kaz frowns. The maid frowns right back. “Mr. Brekker?” She knows his name, and he finds that he likes that even less. “What business?”

Kaz rolls his eyes. Apparently, Barrel trash is not afforded even basic niceties around here. “I want to talk to Wylan. Or Mr. van Eck, if you prefer.” He does a sardonic imitation of a bow, and the maid’s lips draw into a tight, severe line. She can’t be much older than Kaz, but if she keeps scowling like that she’ll have wrinkles before thirty.

“Mr. van Eck isn’t home,” she informs him frostily, turning her nose up. “If you were a friend of his, you would know that.”

“I’m not a friend, I’m a business associate.” The answer comes automatically, followed by another eye roll from the maid. Kaz doesn’t bother to scowl about that, just fixes the young woman with an icy look. “When will the estimable young merchant be home? I have matters to discuss with him.”

“Don’t know,” the maid retorts, and Kaz can tell she’s all too happy to be delivering this news. “He’s been gone more than a week and he didn’t say when he’d be back.”

That brings Kaz up short. It takes everything in him not to show the outright shock he feels. “Stepped out, has he?” he makes himself sound almost bored, though tension is staring to run through his body. “Did he say where he was going?”

Pursing her lips, the maid looks down at him for a long moment, and then harrumphs. “You wait right here, and I’ll show you.” She shuts the door on him instead of inviting him in, and Kaz hears the deadbolt turn before her feet move away from the door. Maybe, on future visits, it might be worth it to disguise himself when he makes his way up here. The whole affair with Kuwei Yul-Bo had made him far more famous…or, rather, _infamous,_ than he was used to. His name was known all around Ketterdam, though it wasn’t accompanied by any charges that stuck. This maid had probably seen his face half a hundred times on wanted posters, and firmly believed he’d helped to kidnap her employer.

To be fair, Kaz _had_ kidnapped Alys van Eck, but he doubted that anyone thought of that weepy little girl as an employer.

When the maid returns, she’s clutching a folded scrap of paper, which she thrusts in Kaz’s face. The bad feeling in his stomach starts to grow as he stares at it. “What’s this?” he asks suspiciously, and the maid scoffs.

“The _note_ he left.”

“The note… _who_ left?”

Another scoff, this one even mightier than the last. “Mr. _van Eck.”_

Frowning well and truly now, Kaz snatches the paper from her hand and scans the lines hurriedly. It’s a quick missive, the slanting letters clearly denoting the urgency. It’s vague, too – _something’s come up – must check on some investments – gone for a while, perhaps a few weeks – look after Mother – tell the lawyer to handle all the business matters –_

“Who’s Sarra? The note is addressed to Sarra.”

The maid sniffs. “Sarra’s the head of household.

“I thought _Wylan_ was the head of the damn household.”

“Don’t take that tone with me, sir!” the young woman is all puffed up with indignation, and all Kaz wants to do is smack her. “Sarra is the head maid.”

It’s not like it matters, anyway. Kaz scans the note again. “How long ago did you find this? And where?”

“Must be…must be eight days now. No, nine. It was right there on his desk when we came in that morning, with the inkwell still full of ink. He must’ve gotten some news during the night. But he said he’d be gone a few weeks, so no reason to worry, and we’re managing just fine, thank you.” She punctuates her explanation with a sniff, but Kaz is hardly listening.

Nine days. Kaz’s mind is racing. Nine days, so Jesper wouldn’t have been around to write the message. The mother’s healing, but she’s not yet right enough in the head to have taken down a note from her son. During the day Jesper said that Wylan used scribes, telling everyone that writing for too long gave him a headache, anyway. But Wylan wouldn’t keep a scribe on late into the night just to dash down a letter like this.

No. No, something’s wrong, and Kaz is sure of it. He didn’t make it this far in the Barrel by ignoring his instincts, and right now, every one of them is howling at him, from his head and his gut and in between every stroke of every letter, written in a foreign hand and signed with Wylan’s name.

“Excuse me, sir. I’m going to need that back.”

When Kaz looks up, the maid has her hand stretched out for the paper and is waggling her fingers impatiently at him. All Kaz wants to do is shove the incriminating letter into his pocket and take some of his irritation out on this girl, but he has the frustrating feeling that sometime soon she may come in handy. Instead, he hands the paper back to her, and forces himself into a curt bow. It takes all that’s in him, but when he straightens he sees the girl’s mollified expression and thinks it may have been worth it. “Sorry to bother you, ma’am.”

Her lips twist as she thinks over how to respond. “No trouble,” she finally says, more gracious than she’s yet been. “I’m sure he’ll be back soon.” She goes to shut the door.

Kaz lands his cane in the jamb, so she can’t swing the door shut. “Ah – I’d like to speak with his mother, though. Marya?”

The suspicious look is back. “Ms. Hendricks isn’t well. She’s recovering from her…illness, but she’s fragile. Her son’s absence has been hard on her and asking her questions about him will only serve to upset her.”

“I understand.” Kaz nods curtly, trying to sound courteous. “Might I…” Ghezen, he doesn’t like asking for permission. “Might I come back another day, to speak with her?”

The maid bites her lip, looking unsure, and actually looking her age for the first time since she’s opened the door. “I…I suppose Ms. Hendricks does like visitors. You could come back tomorrow. She’s best in the morning.”

“Thank you.” Kaz offers another perfunctory nod, and the maid does it back uncertainly before she closes the door. This time, the deadbolt is a little slower to click into place.

For a long moment, Kaz hangs in the doorway, thinking. He could get into the house easily. He’s done it half a hundred times for one reason or the other, both legitimate break-ins and visits where he didn’t feel like dealing with staff. What could the house possibly reveal, though, nine days after Wylan had disappeared? The boy had _maids,_ after all. Whatever clues may have been left behind to indicate what happened or where Wylan had gone would long since have been tidied out of existence.

All that Kaz has to work off is the information from the maid and the note. So what does he know?

Wylan’s gone. He’s been gone for nine days. Try as he might, Kaz can’t think of any legitimate venture that would require that kind of absence. Nothing on the island of Kerch, anyway, and Wylan refused to leave his mother while she was still recovering – it was the whole reason he hadn’t accompanied Jesper to Novyi Zem. No, something is wrong here. Something is very wrong. The note, written in the middle of the night, was clearly meant to alleviate suspicion through a long, unexplained absence. But there was no personal touch there, nothing to prove that Wylan had dictated it, and certainly the writing itself was no clue because Wylan couldn’t write his own damn name.

 _Cornelis Smeet,_ Kaz thinks, with a rush of something like relief. That’s who he has to visit – and damn the fact that the fading light means the day is bleeding into true evening. He’ll happily interrupt the man’s dinner if it means an explanation, and Smeet is still the lawyer for the van Eck estate. If there’s something that requires Wylan’s attention, Smeet will certainly know what it is.

If he had more time, Kaz would probably throw together some sort of disguise, but he doesn’t want to go all the way back to East Stave, and it’s not like Smeet has ever seen him before. Kaz’s reputation is known across Ketterdam, but the lawyer doesn’t have any personal reasons to distrust him. None that he knows of, anyway.

So Kaz makes his way past the Exchange to the Smeet residence, dodging merchers and their high-strung assistants the whole way. His well-tailored coat helps him blend in, even if the cane and his uneven walk draw the eye. He’s too busy thinking to even glare at all the nobles who watch him out of the corner of their eyes. He figures that show of decency is probably well-regarded in these parts.

Wylan could be on an unexpected business trip, and Kaz is being paranoid. Maybe something came up with Jesper in Novyi Zem, and Kaz hadn’t heard because…because, well, why would he? It’s not like Kaz would leave Ketterdam, leave the Dregs to go rescue someone who is perfectly capable of getting out of messes on his own.

Both of the possibilities feel flimsy, likely to dissolve if Kaz pokes them too hard. Wylan is still learning the ins and outs of his father’s business, trying to be the good heir his father never thought he could be. He wouldn’t leave for a few weeks and just tell the lawyer to handle everything as Smeet saw fit. Not to mention his mother. Not to mention the fact that if something were wrong with Jesper, even if Wylan didn’t come running straight to the East Stave to find him, Jes would’ve told Kaz himself. He just would’ve.

On Cornelis Smeet’s doorstep, Kaz heard what he’d been expecting to hear all along. “I don’t know where young Mr. van Eck is,” Smeet informs him, with a shaken head and that familiar look of stern disapproval. “But if I had to guess…” Kaz keeps his gaze impassive, but his heart picks up. “If I had to guess, I would say he’s involved with your element again.”

Kaz’s eyebrows raise, almost of their own volition. “My element?”

“It’s one thing to act the boy when you’re a boy. Rebelling, getting into all sorts of ridiculous scrapes in that slum you call the Barrel.” Smeet waves a dismissive hand. “But Wylan is the head of a household now. He’s responsible for his mother, poor woman, and that stepmother and half-brother too. It’s past time he stops muddling around with…with common criminals.” He punctuates it with a sniff and a glare, as if daring Kaz to argue.

Oh, Kaz could argue. Particularly with the use of the word _common –_ there’s nothing at all common about Kaz’s crew. Right now, he has more important concerns. “You think he’s gone because he’s involved in some kind of…job?”

“I wouldn’t call what you do a job. But there’s certainly no property or investment of his that requires weeks-long investigation.”

Kaz’s mouth tightens to a flat, hard line. “Thank you for your insight.” He turns to leave, but a hand on his shoulder stops him. He looks back at Smeet with cold, dead eyes, what others have been known to call his shark’s eyes.

“Sorry.” The lawyer withdraws his hand, looking a little pale. “Just – when you find Mr. van Eck, or figure out who he’s with, give him a message for me.” He pauses expectantly, waiting for Kaz to agree, but the teenager just looks back flatly. “Tell him to come _home_ and resume his father’s work. He has a talent for it. And whatever he may have found during his time in the Barrel…” Smeet shakes his head. “He doesn’t belong there. He’s a good boy. A good man. He doesn’t belong there.”

Kaz turns away without a word, but in his head, he can’t help agreeing. Wylan is smart. He’s a quick learner, creative, a loyal teammate. Altogether useful. Yet even after his weeks in the Barrel, he still couldn’t stand to see violence, wouldn’t make a deadly bomb, went all soft and hopeful about saving people from death or slavery or gambling, in Jesper’s case. He is most decidedly _not_ a Barrel boy, and never would be. Not unless he died like Kaz had and was reborn.

For a moment Kaz pauses, in the middle of the street in the Zelver district and thinks on that. Perhaps that’s what’s happening right now, in some dank and miserable hole in the Barrel. Wylan van Eck is dying and being reborn stronger, harder, deadlier. Look what it had bought Kaz – a lifetime of wealth and power. In his mind’s eye, Kaz pictures Wylan’s soft curls, his easy smile, and shuts his eyes. However useful it might be. He can’t wish rebirth on the mercher’s boy. 

By day’s end there are twelve letters sent, in the hands of twelve different carriers. Three ships told to signal if they see the black silhouette of _The Wraith,_ three Zemeni’s told to run their envelopes to Colm Fahey’s farm, and three Ravkans told to get their letters to Nina Zenik, or Jesper Fahey, or better yet, to both.

The letters are brief, abrupt, to the point. He doesn’t waste time on niceties, or even personalizing the missives. Just, _Return immediately. Bring the others if you can. Wylan’s missing._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have been gone for a MINUTE but I do have big plans for this so if you are feeling patient please do follow along :)


	3. Wylan

Wylan doesn’t know how long it is between the time he disappears and the time the blindfold is removed. His low estimate is four or five days, his high estimate is over a week. It feels like an eternity. All he knows for sure is that his stomach is growling near constantly, and it feels like there’s an animal in his gut trying to chew him apart from the inside out.

Early on, he’d had plenty of ideas of what he’d say when they finally removed the gag from his mouth. He’d curse and spit and demand to be released, or he’d come across cool and collected and untouchable. He’d threaten them. He wouldn’t give in to a single demand. He’d figure out who they were, and find an escape route, and he’d be back home with his mother investing in new security before his captors ever got a question in.

But they wait so long to question him that doubt creeps in. Hunger sways his reasoning, makes playing along seem like a better and better idea. He’ll be stronger if they feed him a bit. Sharper. He won’t have this awful headache, this weakness in his limbs, the burning feeling in his stomach that makes him want to double over and cry.

When the cloth finally is removed, the pain and the light is blinding. Wylan opens his eyes slowly, slowly, and when he can finally see, realizes that what he thought was the full light of the sun was really just a dim lantern in a dark room. Everything is still blurry, still hazy – how long was he blindfolded? – but Wylan glances around anyway, doing his best to gather information.

It’s a small, dark, wooden room. No windows, only one door. A simple table off in the corner with no drawers, where the lantern rests next to a simple ceramic bowl. Suddenly, Wylan’s mouth is watering as much as it can in his dehydrated state. Ghezen, he hopes that’s food.

He needs to stop thinking about food. He needs to think about…about…about who it was that took the damned blindfold off, for starters. He scans the room frantically, skin crawling. There, off to the side, a dark cloaked figure wearing the mask of Mister Crimson. His captor.

Wylan just stares, with wide eyes, knowing that he looks like a frightened kid but unable to do much else. He’s still gagged.

“Now.” It’s the woman’s voice, and Wylan’s sags with disappointment. He’d hoped, when he saw Mr. Crimson’s mask, that it was the man. The one in charge. But this woman seems to be just another lackey. Oblivious to the feverish working of his mind, the woman keeps talking, her voice echoing a little against the mask. “I’m going to take your gag out, boy. If you don’t behave, I’ll shove it right back in your mouth and we’ll wait a few more days to feed you. That’s not what you want, is it? Well, is it?”

Reluctantly, Wylan shakes his head. He doesn’t like playing along with her little game, and he _really_ doesn’t like the low chuckle that emanates from the mopey mask of Mr. Crimson, but the tearing hunger tells him not to make a stand. Just do what she asks. Just cooperate, and then he can eat, and after he eats, he’ll be able to think.

For a few long moments, the woman pulls at the knot behind his head, and Wylan winces and hisses as she yanks indiscriminately on his tangled hair. Finally, the gag falls away, and Wylan spits out the ball of fabric that’s been in his mouth for Ghezen knows how long.

 _Fuck._ The soreness of his jaw brings real tears to Wylan’s eyes, as he eases it closed for the first time in days. He’s panting by the time his teeth click together, muscles screaming and trembling so hard his jaw rattles.

“Poor baby.” Mister Crimson tuts, shakes her masked head, and lays a gloved hand on Wylan’s cheek. Revolted, he pulls away, but there’s only so much he can do, tied in place as he is. “Oh, don’t try to be brave. I know you’re hungry, boy. I know you’re hurting. My only question is, are you hungry enough to be good for me?”

Face burning, Wylan drops his eyes to the floor and tells himself to breathe. He needs to…he needs to be smart. He needs to be smart more than he needs to have dignity. Not trusting himself to speak, he nods, but Mr. Crimson cackles. “Not good enough, boy, I’m going to need to hear you say it out loud.”

Swallowing hard, Wylan stays quiet for a long moment, glaring, but when Mr. Crimson gathers the spit-soaked rag to shove it back between his teeth, he breaks, all at once. “No!” his voice is so raspy it _hurts_ coming out of him. “No. I’ll…I’ll be good.”

“Good.” He can hear the satisfaction in her voice, and it makes his cheeks burn. He wiggles his fingers, hoping she’ll untie him, but instead she picks up the bowl with a smirk and waves a spoon in front of his mouth. Wylan wants to hunch his shoulders and cover his face and _hide_ but he’s tied right where he is, facing down his own helplessness and humiliation. He can’t decide if speaking those words is better or worse than sitting there, opening and closing his mouth obediently as she spoon-feeds him the thinnest gruel he’s ever tasted.

He tries, just once, to ask her what the hell is going on. “What, what do you want from me?” his voice is still scratchy, and they rasp as he forces them out, but he has to know. He stares searchingly up at the false wooden face she presents him with.

“Ah, ah, ah.” Mr. Crimson waggles a finger in front of his face as if he’s a misbehaving child. “Not yet. You just sit here and eat like a good little boy.”

He wishes she would stop calling him that. It’s mortifying, every time. He tries to square his shoulders, sit up strong. “But-”

Mr. Crimson pulls the bowl of gruel away, and Wylan’s breath catches as she does. “No more questions.” Her voice is sharp now. “Understand?”

“Yes.” Wylan hates how newly meek his voice sounds, how easily he breaks under a little starvation and sensory deprivation. He’s dying to ask her how long it’s been, where he is, why he’s here, who she is, what she wants, who she works for. He wants to spit in her face and knock the bowl from her hands and dare her to hurt him if she really wants him to cooperate.

And instead he opens his mouth on cue, and closes it around the spoon, and swallows. Over and over, never feeling any fuller. It’s still food. And he thinks he’ll do almost anything to be here, in the light, with his jaw and eyes clear. He just doesn’t want to be left alone in the dark again, with nothing but his hunger and his thoughts.

_

It’s probably a day later when the blindfold is removed again. First, the chair is moved while he’s still blind, and Wylan can’t help the embarrassing, muffled yelp that erupts from him when the chair he’s sitting on jolts and slides across the floor. His chest is still rising and fall frantically when the blindfold is removed and he’s once again squinting and hissing at the piercing light of the lantern.

When his eyes adjust, faster this time than before, Wylan finds that he’s sitting at the desk in the corner of the room. There’s a clean sheet of paper in front of him, an inkwell, and a quill. A bad feeling starts to grow in the bottom of his stomach.

Glancing up, he sees the figure beside him dressed in the familiar blues of the Lost Bride, face covered by a thick white veil. If he weren’t tied down so tightly, Wylan would jump out of his skin when he hears the smooth lilt of the man’s voice, the man from the first day, still recognizable behind the sorrowful face of the Lost Bride.

“Hello again, young sir. I’m hoping that I can count on your cooperation today.”

If the pen and paper are any indication of what the man wants, that’s not likely.

With careful fingers, the Lost Bride loosens the gag and draws it out of Wylan’s mouth. The soreness as Wylan eases his jaw shut is just as fierce as yesterday, and he struggles to hold on to his composure.

“I’m sorry for your pain,” the Lost Bride tells him, and indeed, the man sounds somehow mournful, as if this isn’t all his doing. Wylan wants to return some kind of dry jab, but his mouth is still not cooperating right. His muscles are so _sore,_ and he hasn’t had any water since he was fed yesterday. As if reading his mind, the Lost Bride places a cup on the table. “Let me help you with that. Are you right-handed?”

Wylan’s voice isn’t working properly, so he settles for a nod, and watches in mute amazement as the Lost Bride unties his hand. The muscles of his arm wail just as loudly as those in his jaw, if not louder, but Wylan forces himself to reach for the cup with shaking fingers, lift it to his mouth, and take a few long, blissful swallows.

“Better?”

Wylan nods, trying to ignore the way the cup rattles against the desk as he sets it down.

“Good. Now, sir, I am sorry to put you in this position, but I must ask you to write down some information for me. If you do as I ask, you will be returned home unharmed. No one has even noticed that you’re gone yet.”

That shouldn’t hurt as much as it does. Wylan feels pathetic for wanting to flinch. He clears his throat. His voice still comes out harsh and broken, a pathetic rasp. “No.”

“Why, you haven’t even heard my questions yet.” The Lost Bride sounds baffled, a little hurt. He’s a hell of an actor.

“I told you. No.”

It helps that Wylan doesn’t have to be strong, that he can say _no_ because it’s an impossibility, not a choice. It doesn’t help that he can’t see the Lost Bride’s face, that he has to stare up into unmoving wood and imagine what the face behind it is thinking.

“You don’t have the least bit of interest in hearing my questions before you refuse me?”

Wylan clears his throat again, and this time, when he speaks, his voice sounds like his own. “No, I don’t.”

“Listen, sir.” There’s an edge of irritation to the voice, and then the Lost Bride stops short, huffs, and tries again, this time smooth and persuasive as ever. “Hear me, sir. All I need is a letter, written in your own hand, asking your lawyer to transfer some funds. It’s no small amount. I won’t lie to you. But an empire as vast as yours will not feel this loss for long. Only do as I ask, and you will be returned safely home.”

“It doesn’t matter if I write a letter,” Wylan shoots back. His free hand slides over to fumble at the ropes holding his left arm. They don’t give at all, but he scratches at them determinedly. “Without my seal, the letter will be useless, and the seal is in my study at home. If it’s a truly large request, my lawyer will want a meeting even with the seal.”

There’s a long moment of quiet between the two. “Let’s try anyway,” the Lost Bridge says, in his melodious, easy voice.

Wylan glares, right into the eye holes of the mask. “Let’s not.”

The Lost Bride shakes his head slowly. “In time, you will come to regret that.”

Wylan tries to give no sign of it on his face, but in his heart, he agrees.

_

Later, as he sits in the dark, bored out of his skull, Wylan turns his conclusions over in his head. He’s not going to waste time demanding to be set free, claiming that he won’t say a word. This is a big operation, conceived by someone with enough brains to know that he’s lying. The amount of people, the costumes, the fact that he’s gagged and bound and tied to a chair at all times – they know what they’re doing, both in terms of keeping him imprisoned, and keeping him intimidated. He doesn’t know the day or time, who holds him or why, or even something as simple as when he’ll next be fed. Even as it works, Wylan recognizes it for what it is: a psychological tactic to keep him off-guard and anxious.

The elaborate nature of the scheme also indicates that whoever dreamed it up is counting on a big payout. When they fail to get one, and they will, they’re not going to be happy. Asking him about his financials meant they’d likely chosen him because he was a young merchant and they thought he’d be an easy mark. And he would’ve been, if only what they were asking were physically possible.

But Wylan can no more write a letter than he can levitate the chair he’s sitting in. So he sits, and waits, and wonders if he’s useful enough that Kaz will come rescue him.

The next time Mr. Crimson appears, she starts hitting him.

_

Rather than hearing a voice, Wylan is alerted to a new presence in the room by a searing pain in his belly. He hunches over, gasping into the gag, choking on it as he tries to wail. His arms and legs haul on his bonds as his instincts demand that he curl into a ball, but there’s no give in the ropes. Someone’s punched him hard in the stomach, or perhaps hit him with something.

Almost as soon as he thinks it, he hears the echoing laugh of Mr. Crimson. “Don’t like that, do ya, boy?” Wylan pants into his gag, jerking back when he feels her fingers on his chin. She hangs on tight, digging her nail into his skin, and shakes his head for him. “No, you don’t.”

Wylan tries to growl, but it just comes out as a wimpy huff. She laughs again, but this time when the cackle fades, it’s replaced by something serious. “All right now, boy. I’m going to ask you some questions, and you’re going to shake your head or nod, because I don’t see the point in taking out your gag. Do you understand?”

Mutinously, Wylan refuses to nod, and Mr. Crimson sighs lightly. The next second there’s an explosion of pain in his chest, pain like a sunburst, pain he can’t get away from, no matter how much he twists. When he’s done panting through it, he still sitting exactly where he was before, pinned to the chair and utterly vulnerable to the next blow. With the blindfold still tied tight over his eyes, he has no way of anticipating where it will land. His entire body is tense and aching.

“I said, do you understand?”

This time Wylan nods, eyes squeezed shut under the blindfold as if he can hide from his own cowardice. He’s only buying himself a few seconds of peace because he’s going to deny the next question. He has to.

“Good boy.” He flushes, angry and embarrassed, and waits for the next inevitable question. “Now, are you going to cooperate with my friend when he comes in tomorrow? Are you gonna write that letter for us?”

Wylan shakes his head. This time she backhands him, and it feels like his very teeth are jarred in their sockets. She’s wearing brass knuckles, or some kind of heavy glove – _something,_ because the blows are hard enough to make Wylan’s head spin. “Wrong answer, boy. Try again.”

It goes on for what feels forever, and Wylan can feel bruises forming, can feel blood leaking out behind the gag. When he tells her no for what must be the fiftieth time, she hits him twice in the stomach, hard, in quick succession, and the pain is so bright and overwhelming that he passes out, dehydrated and starved as he is.

She brings him back with a pitcher of water to the face, leaving him gasping and spluttering against the wet gag. As he gasps, trying to breathe, she leans in over his shoulder. He can feel her hot breath against his ear. He’s tired and hurting and he wants to be done. So when she asks him again, he nods. He nods frantically, eagerly, as if he’s well and truly broken, and maybe he is. The agreement is a lie, but she doesn’t know that. Wylan tells himself it’s a trick, that he’s still winning because he can’t possibly do the thing he’s promised to do. But it doesn’t feel like winning, or staying on top, or even choosing his battles. Dripping wet and bruised all over and crying miserably into his blindfold, it just feels like defeat. 


	4. Inej

As always, the sight of another ship on the horizon gives Inej pause. _The Wraith_ dropped its first load of liberated prisoners just four days past, and she hasn’t yet replenished their stores. If they were to take on slavers now, she doesn’t know if the masses in the hold would survive the desperate haul back to the shores of the colonies.

But it puts a dagger in her heart to turn away from people suffering.

Finally, Inej turns to her helmsman and asks Avni to bring them a little closer – just close enough to see if the smudge across the waves is a slave ship after all. The cheerful Zemeni, a man who reminds her of Jesper with a few years tacked on, obliges without mentioning that they’re already scraping by on three-quarters rations. He has the same fire burning under his skin as the slight Suli captain who leads him. Slavers took his son away from him. He still looks for the boy’s face in every port.

Thankfully, the wind is in their favor – Inej knows the Saints are blessing her mission, and she feels it in all their little luck. It’s the work of half an hour to draw close enough to examine the outline of the vessel.

“How close, captain?” It’s Rodrigo, her first mate, recruited from the Dregs. He’s less agreeable than Avni, far more likely to remind her that they don’t have the time or the rations or one of a dozen other necessities. That they’ve been at sea a month already and are supposed to be heading home to Ketterdam to rest.

Peering through the spyglass, Inej examines the distant shape on the water. She likes what she sees. It’s a sleek passenger vessel, built for speed and not cargo. In other words, little chance of enslaved people aboard. Relaxing, she’s about to lower the telescope and wave the ship on, toward resupply along Eames Chin, but something sends a thrill of concern up her spine.

The ship’s flag carries the mark of the Dregs.

Unsure what she’s seeing, Inej squints into the spyglass, as if that will help. The Dregs don’t have any ships. Sometimes they send cargo on the ships of others, but Kaz never had any interest in expanding into shipping or even serious smuggling, and though he’d bought her _The Wraith,_ he hadn’t exactly seemed keen to start a fleet.

“What is it?” There’s audible impatience in Rodrigo’s voice. “Is there something-”

“They’re flying a Dregs flag.”

“What?” Consternation ripples across Rodrigo’s face, and he stretches out his hand for the spyglass. He peers through it, and when he finally pulls it away from his eye, he looks deeply disturbed. “It could be a trick. It could be a, a…”

“It could be Kaz.” Inej knows she doesn’t need to say more than that, and even speaking is redundant now that they’ve seen the banner. Of course they’re going to go see what this ship is doing out here.

When the captain of the other ship hands her the letter from Kaz, Inej doesn’t know whether to feel relieved. The flag hadn’t been a trick, but paying a ship to fly a gang flag was no small thing. Why was Kaz so determined to get her attention?

Only one other letter had made it through to her, and that, Inej had read belowdecks, in her quarters, at night when she was alone. This time, she didn’t wait. She tore the envelope open, removed the slip of paper inside, and scanned the lines before the other ship’s captain was even done speaking. 

_Return immediately. Bring the others if you can. Wylan’s missing._

Of all the things Inej had been wondering about – a crisis with the Dregs, Nina found, some bizarre demand from Kaz – this had never been a consideration. _Wylan_ in danger? Sweet, clever Wylan, who’d seemed completely content to leave the criminal life for good, as long as he could take Jesper with him? She’s baffled by it, reading the words over and over, searching for an explanation hidden between the lines.

There was none. Just Kaz’s sharp, spiky handwriting spelling out the barest possible information. If he’d had more information he would’ve given it. If it had been less serious, he wouldn’t have sent a ship. There will be no time, then, to resupply. Inej turns to Avni.

“Set our course for Ketterdam.”

_

Belowdecks, Inej has plenty of time to pace and fret and bite her nails to the quick. As irritatingly vague as Kaz likes to be, if he had more information he would’ve written it. Which means the only thing he knows is that Wylan is missing.

It makes sense, doesn’t it? He’d been alone. Inej had gone, and Jesper had been talking about visiting his father, and none of them had heard from Nina in over a year. Wylan had been alone – a young merch in his father’s house with no allies to speak of in the cutthroat world of Ketterdam. Any number of people could have it out for him. They’d left him. Everyone who would look out for him had left him. The guilt eats at her at night.

It’s an endless two-week voyage back to Ketterdam, and almost the whole time, Inej is pacing holes through the boards of the ship. She’s half hoping that when she slips back in the window at the Slat that Kaz will greet her with a smile and cool, collected reassurance that all’s been set to right. But she’s not so lucky.

Ever since the infamous night when he ejected Per Haskell, Kaz has used the office downstairs to conduct official business. Still, this little room is the only place Inej can picture him – high above the city, dreaming and scheming, sending her out to skulk along the skyline and learn secrets. She slips through that same window now, into an empty room.

Kaz very well might be downstairs now, holding court among the Dregs, but Inej can’t bring herself to go down to him, to have their first reunion in front of so many witnesses. Instead she wanders the room, challenging herself to note every way it’s changed in the two months she’s been gone. There isn’t much – Kaz has the same sparse wardrobe hanging in the closet, the same sheets covering the same bed. It’s sloppily made, and a faint smile touches Inej’s cheeks at the sight of it. Here, as with everywhere else, Kaz tries for rigid discipline, but he doesn’t have the patience, nor does he care enough, to do the job correctly. More often than not his bed is just as rumpled as when he climbed out of it, though the sheets are now pulled up toward the pillow.

In the corner, there’s a desk about an inch deep in paper, and here Inej’s quest grows more serious. The things he brings up here are important, personal, and, with a sinking heart, she notes the project he seems to be spending the most time on.

The floor plans to the van Eck mansion. A birds-eye view of the neighborhood. Notes dashed out on a scrap of paper – a list of names with most crossed out.

He’s still looking for Wylan. Wylan hasn’t been found.

The overwhelming feeling Inej has is distress, of course. Her friend is missing, has been missing for over a month now, and she’s worried. But at the back of her mind, a small, traitorous part of her breathes out a long-held sigh of relief.

Kaz is looking. Kaz cares. Obviously, he had cared enough to call her back, but in her lowest moments, Inej had wondered. Wylan didn’t have much usefulness to them, anymore. He could be a powerful ally under the right circumstances, but though they’d been through hell together, he was a merch, who couldn’t do much without ruining their reputation or his. He didn’t fit in around the Barrel, or in the Dregs. He didn’t have skills that Kaz could count as invaluable. He didn’t, Inej knew, with a strange, sinking feeling, have that same desperate drive for survival that had pulled her and Kaz through any number of scrapes. The reason that Kaz had said he would come for her, even if her legs were broken. She didn’t think Wylan had it, and if there was no logical reason to rescue Wylan, well then…well then…

Why would Kaz do it?

“Inej.”

It’s a testament to how off-balance Inej is, him being able to sneak up on her like that. Her brow is still furrowed as she turns, but then she sees him, there in the corner, his brown eyes and signature smirk and the way his rangy body leans up against the doorframe –

She steps forward with all the desire in her body, and then pauses, hanging in the space before him. They’d spent so much time dancing around each other – would it take time to get back to where they’d been?

As if he can read her very thoughts, Kaz pushes himself off the doorframe, steps forward, puts his hand, his _bare_ hand, up to her cheek. He brushes it with his knuckles and Inej feels her heart seize almost painfully in her chest. “Kaz-”

“I’ve been working on it.”

Inej shuts her eyes and nods, throat working as she tries to swallow. There’s a jaw-cracking smile fighting to break out from under her impassive expression. His hand moves over cautiously to rest on her shoulder. “Inej. I’ve missed you.”

Startled, she looks up into his eyes, which, in the dim light, are the color of dark coffee. Even Kaz looks surprised he’s said it. “Roeder’s not half the spider you are,” he says, as if it’s an explanation, when both of them know that really, he’s just shown her his heart.

Though she’s still singing inside from it, Inej knows that to push him now would be to invite trouble. “Yes, well, the seas and the slavers needed me more,” she replies lightly.

Kaz arches an eyebrow. “The slavers needed you?”

Inej flashes him a wicked smile. “Their sins cried out to be washed away.”

Kaz snorts. “Then I’m sorry to have called you back early.”

It’s his way of getting them on topic. In a heartbeat, Inej turns serious. “I’m not. He’s still missing?”

“Gone without a trace.”

“And you don’t know who took him?”

Growling, Kaz shakes his head. “Like I said. Roeder’s not half the spider you are.”

Inej’s lips draw into a thin line. “The trail’s long cold,” she points out. “What’s he been gone?”

“Going on a month now.”

“A _month?”_ Inej’s caught between frustration and fear and horror, and she doesn’t yet know where she’ll land. For now, she paces the small room like a caged tiger. “A month. A month. Saints protect him.”

“Why would they protect him now if they let him get kidnapped in the first place?” Kaz’s question is no more scornful than usual, but the timing could not be worse. Inej shoots him an absolutely scorching glare, and he coughs and moves on.

“I sent letters to Jesper and Nina too. In Novyi Zem and Ravka. You’re the first to arrive back. Most useful, too. I need you to gather intel.”

A sharp nod from Inej. This is her territory. This is their language. This is a familiar job, one she understands, only now she has the pressure of Wylan’s face behind her eyes. That sweet merch boy, who let her and Jesper stay with him indefinitely, no strings attached, after the whole Kuwei affair. Who looked at Jesper like he hung the moon. Who she had risked her life for. Who had risked his life for her. Inej didn’t need the words of her saints to know that was a tie that couldn’t be broken.

But enough worrying. It was time to get down to business – _her_ business, the business of uncovering secrets. “Are there any leads?”

“Whispers in the Barrel about a new player in town, but I can’t pin anything down.” Inej know how it must eat at Kaz, that there are unknowns moving around the city. She thinks again on what it took for him to let her go. “Whoever it is might be under the protection of one of the other gangs. Could explain why they’re so hard to trace.”

“Any description?”

“A Mr. Crimson mask.”

“That’s _all?”_

“Apparently, she does all her business in it.”

Inej nods slowly, thoughtfully. “What makes you think she has something to do with Wylan disappearing?”

Another growl from Kaz, and Inej knows he doesn’t like his own answer. “Timing.” He tosses his head. “I want something more substantial but the servants don’t know a damn thing. The mother’s barely coherent and she’s no help either.”

“Barely coherent?” A trill of concern sounds in Inej’s bones. When she’d left, Marya Hendriks had been a forgetful woman, one who didn’t understand the last few years of her life, but could certainly hold an intelligent conversation about art, or literature, or music.

Grimacing, Kaz shakes his head. “She’s been backsliding, apparently. Without Wylan around she’s unpredictable. Volatile.”

Troubled, Inej nods slowly. “So she’ll be of no use.”

“None.” She nods, already turning towards the window, to the roofs of the city she knows so well. Behind her, Kaz keeps speaking, filling her in as she scans the horizon, picturing routes and roofs and getaways. “Might be worth looking around the Dime Lions. Pekka Rollins still hasn’t made it back to Ketterdam, and what’s left of the gang is in sore need of a new leader. Could be someone decided they had the stones for the job.” Inej nods, still examining the skyline. It’s late afternoon, and soon dusk will fall. The best time for secret gatherings, and thusly, gathering secrets.

Behind her, Kaz clears his throat. She glances back at him and is intrigued to see him standing up a little too straight, both hands resting on the head of his cane. Nervous Kaz is so rare, she takes a moment to savor it. Finally, she relents. “Yes?”

“Have you found accommodations for your time in the city?”

Inej tilts her head. “Are you saying you rented my room?”

“No.”

They regard each other carefully for a few long moments. With a roll of her eyes, Inej is the first to break. “I hear there’s room in your bed.”

She hardly believes the words coming from her mouth, but a few weeks at sea will do that to a girl. She’s been spending her days with sailors, and after the stories and swears she’s heard, there’s not much that’ll make her flinch. There’s a new confidence in Inej’s eyes, and it’s well worth letting it play for the look in Kaz’s eyes. Who knew Dirtyhands could still blush?

He coughs into his hand. “Yes, well. This is top priority. I’ll understand if you don’t make it back tonight.”

Softening, Inej nods. “You’re really worried about him.”

It’s the wrong thing to say, even though she thinks it must be true. Kaz’s face shutters quickly, leaving his eyes too bright and his smile more of a bare teeth grimace. “He’s one of mine, after the Ice Court job,” he shrugs. “I don’t want people thinking they can fuck with my people. Weakness starts like that. In rumors.”

She knows she shouldn’t, but Inej isn’t ready to drop it just yet. “You know, you can just admit that you care about him.”

Something flashes black in Kaz’s eyes, something like true anger. “I don’t care about people, Inej. I care about tools.”

That, she can’t ignore, so she puts her hands on her hips and stares him down. Finally, he relents with a snarl. “I care about tools…and you.”

The end of the sentence is left unspoken.

_But not him._


	5. Jesper

When Jesper gets the news, he’s been in Ravka barely a week. The letter comes to him in training, a missive urgent enough that someone interrupts his lesson. Kaz’s power is like that, but Jesper is mildly surprised to see him pulling strings all the way in Os Alta. His instructor, Vesma, does her best to argue with her newest, especially headstrong pupil, but he waves her off with a laugh that slides right off his face when he sees the brevity of the message. Even before he takes the words in, he knows that Kaz isn’t writing him a postcard just for fun.

The words register in Jesper’s mind and he stands there, statue still and hardly breathing. He doesn’t – he doesn’t know what to do. Wylan missing? Wylan? His-his Wylan? Missing?

The next thing Jesper knows, he’s moving towards the barracks where he’s staying. Vesma is bounding along next to him, waving her calloused hands and shouting, interspersing the familiar Kerch with cursing in Ravkan. It becomes clear that he’s leaving when he gets back to the barracks that he’s packing, and Vesma goes so far as to try to take his clothes out of the traveling case he’s throwing them into. Jesper fixes her with a look so cold she takes a few steps back, clearly unnerved by this change in her charming, smooth-talking student. In a matter of moments, she’s back to berating him, words that Jesper hardly hears. She keeps up a loud running commentary that he couldn’t pay attention to if he wanted to. His mind is a hundred miles away, racing down the streets of Ketterdam, imagining Wylan in any number of – of – of –

No time for that. No time at all. Time only to pack his things in the most haphazard way, and then he’s setting out down the road through Os Alta. He’ll find a horse along the way. The whole process – opening the letter, reading the news, feeling his heart fall to his boots, packing, and marching down the road with his luggage on his back, has all taken less than half an hour. Time is important now – holding onto it, keeping track of it. Half an hour, just a handful of minutes, but it still feels like way too long. Jesper charges down the road, consumed with the insane urge to run, as if that will help him reach Ketterdam faster. Anything to help him reach Ketterdam faster.

Not everyone is on board with that goal. Vesma is beside herself, caught between cajoling and commanding. Finally, finally Jesper has to start to answer her, if only to get her to leave him alone.

“I’m leaving-”

“No!’

“Yes. My-my friend is missing.” Jesper stumbles over the word, hates himself, berates himself, wonders frantically what to call Wylan, knows that’s hardly the most important thing right now. Beside him, Vesma tries again.

“You’re making good progress!”

“I’ve been here a week.”

“You’ve still made progress! And you have potential, great potential.”

“Don’t care.”

“We’ve welcomed you into our city! We’ve given you shelter, fed you!”

“Thanks for that. Now you have one less mouth to feed.”

“You have a duty to your homeland-”

“This is _not_ my homeland.” Jesper wants to spin and shout it at her, but the drive to keep moving is stronger. “I was born in Novyi Zem. My mother was born in Novyi Zem, and my powers came from _her._ I am not Ravkan, and I have no duty to your land or your king.”

Spluttering, Vesma trots a few steps without protest, trying to think of another angle. “You have – you do have great potential,” she tries, returning to the development of his skills. “Your powers can help you, no matter what you decide to do, or where.”

“Maybe I’ll come back sometime.”

“Who knows if you’ll have the chance?” Vesma all but wails it, drawing stares from Ravkans on either side. “You are here now, in the capitol city. You are being trained by a master. It will take you weeks to get to the sea, and then weeks more to get back to Ketterdam. By then your missing friend will probably be long found.”

Gritting his teeth, Jesper resists the urge to smack the woman bouncing along next to him. She may be more than a foot shorter than him, but her powerful shoulders promise that she can pack a hell of a punch. He focuses on the hard facts of what she’s saying, maps out the journey he’ll have to take as much for his own sake as for hers. “Two days of hard riding will take me to Kribirsk,” he corrects, and Vesma snorts. “The Unsea is a half-day of sand sailing. A day’s ride to Os Kervo. If I get on the fastest ship there, I’ll be in Ketterdam in two weeks’ time.”

_Gods and saints and all that’s holy, I hope he’s not still missing in two weeks’ time._

Beside him, Vesma is shaking her head. “A journey that fast will kill you or the horse you’re riding.”

“Not if it’s a tough horse.”

_

It takes three horses to get Jesper to the Unsea. He rides one while the other two trail along, and he switches them out when the one he’s riding seems to tire. He loves horses, grew up with horses, knows their moods and their needs, and a distant part of him feels for the way the animals groan with weariness when he finally allows them rest at the edge of the dark sand. That part of him wants to stroke their velvety noses and promise them carrots and a warm stable and no work tomorrow.

He squashes that part of him down and stares stonily down at the message in his hands. _Return at once. Bring the others if you can. Wylan’s missing._

It’s that same soft part of him that is wailing now, thinking of Wylan missing, Wylan gone, Wylan… _dead?_ His mind recoils from that, shies like a spooked horse. He can’t be. He can’t be. He can’t be, not Wylan. The months they’d spent in the van Eck mansion had been some of the happiest of Jesper’s life. Sure, he grew restless away from the gambling halls, but Wylan always found something for him to do with his hands. The simple, sweet domesticity had been balm on a soul he didn’t realize was burning up with manic energy. Listening to Wylan play the flute, reading to him, running his fingers through golden-brown hair…it was the kind of thing Kaz would make fun of, the kind of thing far too… _sweet_ for most of his Barrel friends. Jesper’s throat tightens when he thinks about the way he’d played it all off, how he’d made a few too many jokes about how he was in it for the cushy lifestyle and Wylan’s soft bed.

And all right! All right, he’d made jokes about the cushy bed and the willing boy in it and the Dregs had laughed. Jesper hadn’t meant it. Not really. He just had to maintain a reputation, make sure they knew he hadn’t gone as soft as his company. And he’d joked with Wylan, and the merch had always rolled his eyes, seemingly secure, but, but, but –

Why had Jesper _said_ shit like that? Why had he never said other things, the things that mattered? Why had he left Wylan alone? A thousand fruitless questions pinging around the inside of Jesper’s skull. Who could’ve done this? And what exactly had happened? And why, why, _why?_

The anxious energy is rising up in him again – the need to break something, or fire his guns, or spin the Makker’s Wheel. Gritting his teeth, Jesper turns his focus to a handful of pebbles he lifts from the shore of the shifting sands. He spends his energy whittling each of the sand-smoothed stones into the sharpest point he can manage. Concentrating on moving the particles of rock around soothes him until the sun breaks over the horizon and the sand ships slowly come to life with crew and early morning passengers. When he sees the passengers trailing onto one of the ships, he tucks the sharpened stones into a leather pocket at his waist and stands, following the thin crowd of groggy travelers toward the ramp. He wants to shove his way through them and board first, but that’s just nervous energy talking. Getting on deck first won’t make the ship leave any faster. Is it just him, or is everyone moving at a _glacial_ pace?

“Ticket?”

“Don’t have one.”

The Ravkan looks up sharply, but Jesper isn’t done talking. “I’ll give you all three of the horses on shore if you take me across.”

The ticket taker glances toward the horses. They’re good Ravkan stock, a little bigger than ponies and hardy enough to weather harsh winters. They aren’t known for their speed – Jesper had to push them hard to get here as fast as he did – but they’re sturdier than racehorses and strong enough to pull a cart. They can lope for distances that would make other animals balk. It had cost almost half of the kruge that Wylan had given him to buy the trio, and the boatmen will certainly earn more from their sale than from the handful of kruge Jesper would pay for a ticket.

“We’re not a pawn shop,” sniffs the ticket taker. Jesper rolls his eyes. The man is posturing. His eyes lit up when he saw those horses. “But…I suppose we can make an exception, if those truly are your animals.” When Jesper hands him the bill of sale from two days past, the taker’s eyebrows lift. “Are you on the run, young man?” His gaze is suddenly suspicious, severe. Jesper huffs. Wistfully he thinks of Ketterdam, and the ease with which one could get business, any kind of business, done quickly.

“Nothing untoward. I’m trying to get home. Family emergency.”

 _Home. Family emergency._ The words roll off his tongue so easily, and the ticket taker stands aside. The whole journey, Jesper stands at the stern, staring into the wind and thinking about those words. _Home._ Is Ketterdam home? _Family._ Is the gang his family? Is Wylan?

That’s the question that sticks in his brain particularly hard, as the others’ faces join Wylan’s in Jesper’s head. _Family._ Kaz would hate it, but Jesper thinks that even Colm would agree. If he can’t count his crew as family, then they’re all very alone in the world, indeed.

_

The days between Novokribirsk and Ketterdam pass in a blur of horses and ships. First the riding, and then the sailing, the whole time with ants crawling under his skin. Jesper whittles pebbles into points, sticks into points, everything he encounters into a weapon. At night he has bloody dreams about whoever has kidnapped his boyfriend. Whether it’s a good or a bad dream depends on whether the kidnapper or their victim is covered in blood. He’ll wake gasping, or shouting, or on the worst of nights, sobbing, because he’s gotten there too late. The crew of the ship have the decency not to mention it, but Jesper knows they’re whispering behind his back. Usually, he’d go out of his way to make up for it, joking and laughing and telling stories over meals, but Jesper can’t bring himself to care about their muttering, their covert glances. He’s barely hanging on as is, he can’t worry about what they’re thinking about him. If there were a game around, any game, he would’ve lost what little remains of his kruge, gambling on the outcomes of matches between the sailors. But somehow, he’s picked the one ship where there’s no gambling to be done, or even watched wistfully. These eager sailors are too young, too fresh, too enamored with the sea. Their cheerful voices are an affront to Jesper’s mourning ears. They’re busy scampering around the ship like squirrels, and Jesper is left to obsess. And obsess. And obsess.

Kaz is searching. That’s good news – the best news – and he’s pulling them all back from the far-flung reaches of the map. Jesper has no doubt the missive that came to him went out to Inej too, to Nina, wherever Nina is. Would Kaz have included Kuwei? Jesper doubts it. He participated in their schemes, but he was never more than a pawn. Even Wylan, pure and true as he was, had built them bombs or weevils or offered himself up as a double agent. Wylan is one of them. Kuwei was not, is not.

So it’ll be him and Kaz and Nina and Inej. Well, if Kaz can find Nina. Just the four of them, or three of them. Just four, or just three…

First Matthias, and then Nina disappearing, and now, now, now…

Now only three of them. _Fuck._

Why had he left? Seeing his father was one thing, but why had he stayed away, planned to be off for a quarter year or more? Kaz could do without him, was all too happy to make it clear that he could do without any of them. But Wylan, alone in that house with his ghost of a mother, target painted on his back by his association with Kaz, his opposition to slavery, his holdings, his inherited place on the Merchant Council…Off the top of his head, Jesper can think of half a dozen reasons for someone attacking Wylan. And Jesper had left him. Left him alone to go chasing stories about Grisha magic in the mountains of Ravka. Who _cares_ about Ravkan sorcery? His Novyi Zem gift was enough, if he wanted training he could’ve gone to someone from home, could’ve found something that would remind him of his mother instead of taking him farther away, and, and…

He just keeps running up against the fact that Wylan’s been missing days now, maybe weeks, and Jesper didn’t even know anything was wrong. How can that be? How could he not have felt different, wrong, inexplicably upset? He’d have thought connections meant more than that, were more robust than that, but a little distance and suddenly – suddenly –

Nothing. From any of them. Wylan had been alone – _alone –_ he had needed their help, and none of them had even known that one of theirs was gone.

And Wylan – oh, Wylan’s hardly one of them, and Jesper doesn’t feel bad thinking it because the merchling just _isn’t._ He was indispensable on the Ice Court job, and the Kuwei affair, but that didn’t make him a Dreg. All the heists in the world wouldn’t make that sweet, earnest, gentle boy into Barrel stock. Jesper sucks in a breath just thinking about it, and right behind the fondness is a heavy solid dose of discomfort.

Because he’d pushed back against Wylan’s gentleness, hadn’t he? He’d pushed and poked and teased, loved nothing more than making Wylan blush to the tips of his ears. And Wylan was smart, and clever, and could be quick with a dry joke, and what they had was playful anyway…but now, as Jesper rushes back from across the sea, he wonders what exactly it was that they had. Between all the jokes and the jabs, they’d never had that conversation. Jesper had never wanted to, never thought they’d needed to, hadn’t wanted to confront something so slippery as _feelings_. And now, now he’s left wondering what exactly he’s rushing across the sea for. And why. And what will be there when he gets to Ketterdam, anyway.

Jesper remembers the bruises on Wylan’s face and chest, after the Dregs had given him the harshest false beating Jesper had seen in a long time. He remembered those bruises disappearing, night after night, under his fingertips, and the deep relief he felt when Wylan stood before him unharmed and whole once more, because Wylan isn’t meant to wear bruises. They look wrong on him. He doesn’t have the toughness in his eyes, the harsh determination. He just looks wounded, lost, and Jesper wonders, with a heavy heart, what he looks like now. How long will it be until he sees him whole and happy again? How long will it be until he feels that relief?

And when did he get so _soft?_ On his darkest nights, Jesper lies in bed and wonders how he let himself get so involved in someone who is – is – is –

Is such a _liability._

Immediately, Jesper regrets the thought, squirms in his hammock at the cruelty of it. The line of thinking is persistent, irrepressible. _He’s racing back to Ketterdam because the boy can’t protect himself. His boy can’t protect himself._

His boy.

The thoughts go away after a few bad panics. Being scared is draining, and horrible, and yes, it would be easier if Jesper could rest easy knowing that Wylan could take care of himself. But regardless of whether or not that’s true, Wylan is Jesper’s. He knows it in his chest, in his bones, in the dreams he has of Wylan’s bloody grateful face when Jesper rescues him. Under the doubt and the questions and the lack of a name, Jesper knows the shape of Wylan’s body, of his smile in the morning. He knows Wylan’s favorite kind of tea. The merch boy is Jesper’s. And Jesper, notorious flirt and incurable gambler, veteran of the Barrel, somehow finds himself a part of a gentle blonde merchling with a mansion in the Business District. It’s not something he expected. Perhaps not even something he’d wanted. And yet not even the coldest, harshest, most calculating part of Jesper can find it in his heart to regret it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey hey hey I am back! Sorry this took me so long - I've had a lot going on lately, but recently got back to this story and have been making some excellent progress so v excited for that :) You may have noticed I changed chapter titles - wanted it to be a little clearer who's narrating! Anyway, I hope y'all are as excited to hear from Jesper as I was to write him. Poor bb is DISTRAUGHT

**Author's Note:**

> This is so so so self-indulgent. Please please leave your thoughts in the comments, I live for them. 
> 
> If you'd rather chat on tumblr, I can be found at overcomewithlongingfora-girl :)


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